Headlining the Forbesarticle in February of this year "Apple Acting More Like Microsoft Than Facebook and Google," Steve Schaefer openly wonders if the law of large numbers is working against the once star iconoclast. Recent technology stumbles suggest the problem may be more closely related to organizational mass and control rather than financial variables, and no where is the loss potential more clearly evident than in the evolution of Apple's reputation. Notwithstanding a high reputation premium and low value risk, at 0.92 and 0.10 percentiles, respectively, Apple no longer commands the highest premium nor the lowest risk among its 73 peers.

Few things are as illustrative as an exercise of comparing and contrasting. Huygens this week is presenting three pairs of corporate reputation data for the sole purpose of the benefits described. First up are Microsoft (MSFT) and Nokia (NOK). The latter, having taken action motivated by a burning platform, appears -- as Huygens' friend, a fireman, likes to say -- to have saved another foundation. Claiming that foundation, intellectual property actually, is Microsoft whose patent department used to be headed by Marshall Phelps, formerly of IBM, who brought over IBM's tradition of amassing patents. But that's all inside baseball. Let's look at what the stakeholders expect, as reflected in the Steel City Re reputational value metrics.

Looking first at the vital signs is evidence that Microsoft's current reputational value volatility, what Consensiv, the reputation controls consultancy, likes to term the Consensus Trend, has reached parity with Nokia. What was formerly an indication of relatively high certainty of the appropriate reputational value at the 29th percentile from a pool of 85 companies for Microsoft, and average certainty at the 56th percentile from of pool of 74 for Nokia, is now in the 60th+ percentile for both. In absolute numbers, Nokia's current RVM (RVM is a non-financial measure of reputational value) volatility is around 10%, which puts it comfortably in the range of "expected big equity changes." The other metrics generally show that the same bottle of fine scotch could be used toast success at Nokia and drown sorrows at Microsoft, for the leading indicators are stable for the former, and negative for the latter. The bottom line, Microsoft's current reputation rank has fallen. It has lost significant amount of Reputation Premium; the opposite for Nokia. QED.